


Child of Babel

by The_Word_Arranger



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Ethos is Amazing, Gen, Polyglot Ethos, Wow My Writing is Rusty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9599015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Word_Arranger/pseuds/The_Word_Arranger
Summary: Ethos does lunch in a different language every day of the week.A character study in seven parts while I ease myself back into writing.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This took me approximately forever to write, because apparently when you don’t write for almost 19 months you kind of forget how.
> 
> All canon characters belong to HamletMachine.
> 
> Puck and Oberon belong to A2MOM.
> 
> Deck Chief Jackson and Castor belong to phyrestorm. Maybe the concept of Praxis being of Greek descent does also? Please let me know.
> 
> Vesta, Ceres, Luthe, Tor, Letheo and Zephario are my own brain farts and I have no excuse.
> 
> As always, I have no beta, and I suck at grammar. Constructive criticism is encouraged.  
> Fun fact: I called myself The_Word_Arranger because The_Semicolon_Abuser and The_Comma_Ignorer didn’t have quite the same ring to them. 
> 
> All love to HamletMachine!
> 
> ***

On Mondays, Ethos speaks Mandarin.

Ethos likes this, both the alliteration and the symmetry of it. Mondays are the start of his week, and Mandarin is where it all started.

***

It starts like this.

It is Ethos’ fifth day on board the Sleipnir, and he is just about to the point where he doesn’t wonder where he is when he first wakes up. The Sleipnir is a far cry from Starbase One, with its spacious layout and attractive architecture. In the Federated Alliance, personal space and privacy are privileges earned with rank and Starbase One is replete with Commanders, Captains, Admirals and all kinds of diplomats who expect better than the cramped quarters and utilitarian ugliness of a battleship. He misses his single room, his desk, and the homey language lab where he spent all his time translating Alliance transmissions and working on his Colteron to Standard English translation program. Now, he is officially designated as a Navigator, spends his days in the sterile bareness of Primary Navigation, and shares the tiniest room imaginable with his new Fighter. He is pretty sure he has a Fighter, although he hasn’t seen much of Praxis since they met the day they transferred over. His Fighter is less than a week out from losing his eye, his previous Navigator, and almost his life, and Ethos can’t really blame him for wanting to run and hide like a wounded animal. He got the bare bones version of the story when Commander Cook called him in to let him know of his reassignment, and he got a much more detailed and heart-wrenching version from Praxis the first night they shared their closet of a room. Ethos is sure that Praxis would never have willingly told him what happened, but he talks in his sleep, and Ethos hasn’t figured out yet how to tell Praxis that he actually speaks Greek, too.

Ethos tries to give Praxis the space he seems to need; he tries not to be offended that Praxis wants absolutely nothing to do with him while at the same time being obviously sweet on another Navigator. He feels like he spends a great deal of his time trying not to be a complete mess himself. Most days, he thinks he is doing a decent job. Staring at Vesta sitting morosely by himself at a table in the mess hall, Ethos reflects that he could be doing worse.

Vesta is one of several hundred new people Ethos has met in the last week, but unlike so many of his new crew mates whose identities blur into a vague sea of black and white and code names, Ethos has no trouble remembering Vesta’s face. Vesta is possibly the most miserable looking person Ethos has ever met, and he radiates despair and unhappiness in a way that makes everyone around him look away in embarrassment to eye the exits. Vesta and his Fighter Ceres came on board two days ago as part of the last group from Starbase Six before the Sleipnir headed out towards Colteron space. Ethos thinks that Vesta is too young and too sweet to be out here, but he was one of the top ranking Navigator cadets out of the academy for the year, and the Alliance sorely needs his talents on this mission. Unfortunately, Vesta is also too dejected to live up to his potential. Already painfully shy, his brilliance is further crippled by his desperate homesickness as he struggles to adjust to his first deployment and the harsh, bitter realities of life on the edge of war.

So Ethos is surrounded by miserable people, and while he has no ideas yet how to help Praxis without being pushy or obnoxious, he had one idea he thinks might help Vesta. He’s never been good at standing by.

Ethos grabs his tray of what passes for lunch out here on the other side of nowhere, and goes to sit across from Vesta. It takes Vesta a few moments to notice him, distracted as he is with watching his soup swirl as he idly stirs his spoon through it. When he does notice, he looks startled that someone is actually bothering to seek him out, when most of the crew actively avoid him these days.

Ethos smiles his friendly smile, opens his mouth and turns Vesta’s world upside down. 

< “Do you mind if I sit here, Vesta?” > In perfect Mandarin.

Vesta looks like he wants to cry, tears welling up in the corners of his eyes. He is in a strange land, surrounded by strange things and stranger people, but here are the sounds of his home spilling out of this person he barely knows. Ethos waits patiently while Vesta collects himself, holding his tray and hoping that Vesta won’t push him away or retreat further into himself. Vesta takes a few shaky breaths before sitting up straight and gesturing to the empty seat with an open hand.

< “Please do.” >

< “Thanks. My name is Ethos, by the way. It’s kind of hard to remember everyone’s task name when you meet so many new people at one time, isn’t it? Maybe we should wear name tags! You fly the Starfighter Dawn, right? My ship is named Tiberius. Kinda gloomy, huh? I heard from Puck that Lieutenant Keeler is going to have us down in the hanger bay this afternoon doing upgrades on the com systems...” > Ethos lets himself babble away, aware that they are attracting attention and not caring as he watches Vesta finally start to unwind and stop looking like he will burst into tears at any second.

He keeps up their mostly one-sided conversation all through lunch, and doesn’t stop until they are alone in the lift on their way down to the hanger bay for an afternoon of heavy lifting and fiddly wiring.

Vesta speaks into the brief silence when Ethos actually stops talking long enough to take a breath. < “Thank you very much, Ethos.” > He briefly lets the very tips of his fingers rest against Ethos’ chest, above his heart before saying again, in English this time, “Thank you, for understanding.” 

Ethos smiles happily. “You’re welcome. I remember how hard it was, how homesick I was, when I was first deployed. Sometimes, you just want to be reminded of home, so you can remember what it is you’re even fighting for. And I’m always happy to talk to a friend.”

“Friend.” Vesta lets the word roll off his tongue, trying it on for size. “Yes, I think you are a good friend to have. How is it that you speak Chinese so well?”

Ethos shrugs a little in embarrassed modesty. “Language is what I do. I’m here as a Navigator now, but I was recruited to the Alliance as part of their Colteron language translation team. I do a lot of Colteron to English translations now that we’ve decoded their language system, but when I first started, it was mostly translating orders and memos between different human languages. More people speak Mandarin than any other language so it seemed like a good one to know. The tones are pretty difficult though. I really had to train my ears to hear the differences in some of them.” Ethos is a bit of a babbler in any language. 

They reach the hanger bay floor and Vesta looks shyly over to where Ceres is already waiting by their ship. “Thank you again, Ethos.” Then, hopefully, “maybe we can do it again sometime?”

“Sure. Find me for lunch again when you want to talk. I’ll see you later.” Ethos watches in satisfaction as Ceres’ eyes just about fall out of his head when he sees his normally melancholy Navigator walk up to him with a hint of a smile on his face.

Mission accomplished.

Ethos turns towards Tiberius and sighs. Praxis is unsurprisingly nowhere to be found, and Ethos doesn’t hold out much hope that he will suddenly appear. He goes off to see if he can butter Deck Chief Jackson up with a few smiles into helping him get the heavy outer access panel of his ship open. It worked last time.

It works this time, too.

***

On Tuesdays, Ethos speaks Italian.

Ethos isn’t terribly surprised that the entire ship hears about his lunch with Vesta by lights out that night. In his experience, the speed of gossip is only a infinitesimal fraction slower than the speed of light. He is surprised, though, when Tor of all people claims Tuesday lunches with him and requests Italian. Ethos sincerely hopes that he means Italian to speak and not to eat, because what they actually get for lunch is suspiciously gelatinous, possibly sentient and definitely not Italian.

Tor isn’t quite the typical Fighter. He is calmer and more composed than most of the brash, black-clad rabble, reminding Ethos more of Encke than anyone else. Regrettably, while Encke manages to be reassuring even when he is imposing, intimidating, and yelling at the top of his lungs, Tor just makes most people vaguely uncomfortable. It is an unfortunate attribute he shares with Luthe, his lover and Navigator of three years. Ethos spends a fair amount of time in Luthe’s company as well, as they are assigned to the same shift in Primary Navigation. He has come to the conclusion that Luthe actually lives on a slightly different plane of reality from everyone else, except possibly Tor, and that the unsettling vibrancy of Luthe’s almost glowing green eyes is an indication that they are a gateway into the Astral plane. Luthe is always calm and collected, no matter what the circumstance, and Ethos and Selene, whom Ethos has discovered is great at reading people, agree that this is deeply suspicious. The only people capable of withstanding Luthe for any period of time are Keeler and Puck. Selene says this is because Keeler is actually a well disguised hot mess who desperately needs the ‘calm the fuck down’ vibes that Luthe exudes. Ethos isn’t sure yet about their sweet looking superior officer, but he has already figured out that Puck’s specialty is making other people uncomfortable and that he is therefore immune to Luthe. 

Ethos is slowly working up his own immunity to Luthe due to his weekly lunches with Tor. Their first lunch, Ethos had been so tongue tied, his Italian so rusty, and his world ever so slightly off the normal axis that he spent fully ten minutes talking about how much he missed weather in general. Weather was always a safe topic, except that there wasn’t much of out in deep space as a rule. 

These days, he and Tor talk about all kinds of inanities, from sports to books to how they agree that the Sleipnir deck plans were designed by a penguin that was probably concussed. No matter what they talk about, Ethos always leaves lunches with him feeling a little bit out of touch with reality, and longing for either a nap or a very strong cup of coffee. He usually has to settle for the later and he sips it at his station in Primary Navigation while staring out of the corner of his eye at Luthe, and wondering if he and Tor are secretly aliens.

***

Wednesdays are wild card days.

Last week, he spent lunch speaking Tagalog with Zephario, and discovered that Zephario absolutely loves to swear. This is not a surprising characteristic for a Fighter, but it is surprising coming from Zephario whom Ethos has never once heard swear before their fateful lunch. Ethos thinks it probably has something to do with the fact that his Navigator Letheo, whom Zephario absolutely can’t stand and hates being compared to, is known for speaking in an English dialect composed of approximately sixty percent obscenities. Whatever the reason, Zephario had obviously been holding himself back if the way the vulgarities positively flowed out of him was any indication. Many people think that swearing is a sign of an inability to communicate, but Ethos knows that it is the mark of a truly fluent speaker, and he finds it almost beautiful how Zephario can weave profanity into his sentences. Ethos greatly expanded his vocabulary that afternoon; unfortunately none of it is any less than R rated.

The week before, he spent trying to speak Portuguese with one of the deck hands. It’s a language Ethos always meant to learn, but never quite got around to. After an hour’s lunch with Nicolao, Ethos thinks he may be addicted. He can’t speak it for beans, but he finds that he can understand it pretty well. It’s an interesting language, filled with the archaic roots of several old languages, mixed in with surprising modern twists, and he loves the way he can taste so many other languages in its beautiful cadence. It’s his favorite kind of language puzzle, the kind where he already has all the edges in place from all the other languages he has studied, and all he has to do is fit the rest of the pieces together until he can reveal the picture. Nicolao can’t often come to lunches at the same time as Ethos because he usually works the night shift, but he and Ethos have agreed to meet once a month from now on.

Nobody has signed up for this week yet, and Ethos is planning on finally getting Selene to help him brush up on his Hindi. 

Or he may fall asleep in his plate; he’s not sure yet.

***

On Thursdays, Ethos speaks Japanese. 

Japanese was the first foreign language Ethos learned to speak. At four years old, he had, like generations of small boys before him, fallen forever in love with Pokemon. Like most small children, he never seemed to tire of watching the same anime episodes over and over again, sometimes pausing the playback so he could haltingly read the English translations and make sure he was understanding correctly. Seven weeks after he started watching the episodes, he shocked the hell out of his parents when he marched his bold, little-boy self up to an elderly Japanese lady in the park and asked her, in passable Japanese, if he could pet her dog. Michiko Baachan had been delighted to meet such a smart little boy, and had become his favorite babysitter and first language teacher at the same time. Ethos remembers her fondly, thinking back to days when she taught him to read kanji by telling him little stories about the detailed characters. He’s never had a language tutor that he loved more, even if she hadn’t actually been trained to teach and was thus the reason he spoke Japanese like a little old lady until he turned eight and enrolled in formal classes. 

When Japanese lunches first start, Ethos enjoys them immensely. Takeshi, one of the medical assistants, comes and gushes about his wife who is pregnant with their first child. Castor, the Fighter of Starfighter Essex, comes and gushes about the newest manga releases. The three of them laugh and chatter loudly, cutting each other off and generally acting ridiculous. 

It all changes in the space of one week.

Between one Thursday and the next, Takeshi’s wife has their baby without him there, and he realizes that he might never actually get to meet his son if things keep going the way they are headed. He and Ethos hunch next to each other in the mess and try not to look across the table too often to where Castor sat and will never sit again, because he’s gone. Dead.

It is on Thursdays that Ethos allows himself to know that while these lunches started as a way to help a homesick friend, they have evolved into a coping method for him to keep his sanity. It is on Thursdays that Ethos pulls back the veil and opens his eyes again to the harsh reality of the war they are fighting.

Japanese is a good language for stoic and solemn suffering, and he and Takeshi find catharsis in their shared grief.

***

On Fridays, Ethos speaks French.

Mostly, it is Oberon who comes, although occasionally a few other Navigators will show up. Two weeks ago, one of the mess hall workers came to join them. This made Ethos want to cry a little on the inside, because the soup he ate for lunch while talking to their, sort of, French chef had the same four major ingredients as the cat food his mom used to feed their cat: chicken, chicken broth, green peas, and green pea powder. Ethos supposed that it was objectively a good soup, but it mostly made him a little homesick and a lot nauseous. 

Oberon speaks French with one sentence out of three in Haitian Creole. Ethos doesn’t know much of this Creole language, but Oberon is a wonderfully patient teacher and Ethos is an excellent student. Ethos reflects that Oberon is in general a very patient sort of man, which helps explain how he can maintain his relationship with Puck and not run screaming out an airlock. 

Ethos had been a little worried that Puck would be upset with him for spending so much time with his Fighter boyfriend, but Puck had just laughed and told Ethos that if he wanted to make it up to him that he would come back and teach Puck everything Oberon was teaching him. When Ethos asked why Puck didn’t just ask to learn Creole straight from Oberon, Puck giggled and explained that Oberon tended to drop into Creole when the sex was really banging, and would then get embarrassed and refuse to translate for Puck later. 

Ethos thinks that he really didn’t need to know that. He also thinks that Puck is the perfect task name for him, as he possesses a deviousness all out of proportion to his petite, bubble-gum pink self. Ethos bemusedly finds himself dutifully reporting back to Puck with his new lessons, and is hoping to soon discover a way to bleach parts of his brain clean again.

***

On Saturdays, Ethos speaks Russian.

Keeler speaks fluent Colonial Russian, but likes to pretend that he doesn’t. He explains to Ethos that this is because people don’t bother to censor themselves around him if they don’t think he can understand them.

Ethos speaks fluent Colonial Russian, and finds it better to let everyone know that he does. He finds that people are more open and honest with him when they know that he can speak the language that they live and think in. Also, he is a shit liar. 

It’s mostly Fighters that come to Saturday lunches, and they were extremely wary of Ethos to start. What business did an Earth-born Navigator have speaking their language? Why the hell would he want to talk to them in the first place? But Helios came, probably courtesy of Selene, and he was popular enough among the other Fighters to sway a few of them into a least showing up. The first few weeks were an unofficial vetting process of sorts, full of suspicious looks and charged silences. They quickly discovered that Ethos really is as sincere as he acts, and they also discovered that while talking to him doesn’t really remind them of home as much as talking among themselves does, that it does make their new home a little bit easier to understand. They know that the Navigators as a group didn’t think much of them, and that they are on the losing end of an epic culture clash; most of them try not to care too much because there is not much they can do about it. They keep themselves to themselves as much as possible, because their counterparts are a great big white mystery.

But then, all of a sudden, there is this elite, fluffy little Navigator sitting with them over lunch, blushing a little at their crudeness, but speaking and swearing away in Russian, messing up every now and again, and laughing with them at his own mistakes. 

They conclude that, far from the expected paradigm of snobby superiority, Ethos is actually an incredibly awkward doofus. Incredibly smart, too; but more human and easier to understand for his imperfections. They like that they can talk to him, can ask questions and get answers without their limited fluency in a second, and sometimes third, language getting in the way. 

Encke and Keeler watch with interest how the Fighters that spend more time with Ethos then turn around and start to spend more time with their own Navigators. They observe that the combat scores of these teams steadily rise as they find common ground and build closer relationships with each other. They wonder if Ethos knows just how big an impact he is having on the social order of the Sleipnir, and if he even realizes that he has half of the Fighters on the ship wrapped around his little finger. 

***

On Sundays, Ethos speaks English. 

It is by far his biggest group, with almost everyone from his other lunches showing up and pushing three tables together to accommodate their numbers. For most, it is an excuse to socialize with crew mates they might otherwise not ever spend time with. For others, it is an opportunity to practice their English in the non-judgmental company of people who were once in their boots. They are not afraid to make mistakes around Ethos anymore, because at this point they have all heard him say at least one completely ridiculous, nonsensical thing. Ethos knows that people tend to judge each other’s intelligence based on their ability to express themselves in their accepted common language. It is a prejudice that is built into the human psyche, evidenced through out history and across cultures. He doesn’t like that this is true, hates the way that language can drive people apart when it is supposed to be the pinnacle triumph of humanity’s ability to come together and create society. He likes Sunday lunches because he believes that language should build community up instead of tearing it down. He feels incredibly lucky to have such a gift for languages, and thinks that the scene around him makes every day of over twenty years of study worth it.

Ethos speaks less on Sundays than any other day, preferring to watch and listen instead. It gives him an incredible amount of satisfaction to sit surrounded by his comrades, his friends, his students, his teachers, his new family and know that he belongs there. 

Ethos catches Praxis watching their loud, laughing group from where he sits alone, and gives him a small smile. There is a longing in Praxis’ eye when he looks at all of them together that catches Ethos off guard; he thought that Praxis was solitary because he preferred it that way, but more and more he is not so sure. Ethos resolves to try once more to reach out to Praxis. Maybe he will get shot down again, but he’ll never know unless he tries. He’s never been good at standing by, after all.

***

That night, when Praxis finally gets back to their room, Ethos speaks Greek.

It’s a start.

***


End file.
